Morris County trial will start for 2nd brother accused of killing neighbor

After Jonathan Zarate was sentenced to life in prison in January for the 2005 murder and dismemberment of his 16-year-old Morris County neighbor, Jennifer Parks, members of her family wept and embraced.

Though relieved, they knew the case was not over.

Star-Ledger file photosJames Zarate, above, will go on trial Monday for his part in the killing of Jennifer Parks. In January, Jonathan Zarate, his brother, photo below, was sentenced to life in prison for the same crime.

"One down, one to go," Jennifer's father, David Parks, said after Zarate's Jan. 23 sentencing.

Parks was referring to Zarate's younger brother, James Zarate, who also was charged with murdering Jennifer and desecrating her remains in the basement of the Zarate home on July 30, 2005.

James Zarate, who was 14 at the time of the killing, is now 18 and being tried as an adult. His trial is scheduled to begin Monday with jury selection in Superior Court in Morristown before Judge Salem Ahto.

The prosecution's task will be somewhat different in the second Zarate trial. This time they will try to prove that James also participated in the killing and dismemberment and tried to help get rid of the body.

To that end, key testimony for the prosecution in the upcoming trial will be a medical examiner's additional findings on how Jennifer was beaten and stabbed to death and dismembered, a prosecutor said last month at a pretrial hearing.

"I do anticipate the medical examiner being a little more critical in the second trial. I believe he will opine that this murder was committed by more than one person," Morris County Assistant Prosecutor Robert Lane told the judge during last month's hearing.

Initially charged with murder and four weapons offenses, James Zarate was further indicted in March on counts of desecrating human remains and hindering apprehension. He has pleaded not guilty.

Defense attorney Joseph Ferrante could not be reached for comment.

Police have said they caught the Zarate brothers and another teen, Vladimir Basilio, trying to toss a trunk containing Parks' remains off a bridge in Rutherford the day after she was killed.

Jonathan Zarate, now 22, was convicted in December and sentenced the following month to life in prison for murder, desecrating human remains, hindering his apprehension, employing a juvenile to commit a crime, and weapons offenses.

Jennifer Parks, 16, was brutally murdered in 2005, in the basement of her home.

Also in March, Basilio testified that the brothers planned to kill Parks as retaliation for her having previously gotten James into trouble. The judge is expected to issue a ruling before the trial on the admissibility of statements the Zarates made to Basilio, which the state alleges demonstrate that the brothers were co-conspirators.

Last month, the judge ruled that testimony about James Zarate's "prior bad acts" of harassment and criminal mischief toward Parks and her mother will be admissible in the trial.

The Parks slaying was one of several high-profile homicides in Morris County that have gone to trial over the past 1-1/2 years, all of which resulted in convictions.

"We are looking forward to bringing this, our sixth homicide case in 14 months, to conclusion," Morris County Prosecutor Robert Bianchi said in a statement about the James Zarate trial. "I am proud of the work that my attorneys and detectives have done as well as our significant partnership with the municipal departments and the Morris County Sheriff's Office to successfully prosecute all of these cases. They have performed admirably."

The Parks family's attorney, Richard Pompelio of the New Jersey Crime Victims' Law Center, said they know the trial will be difficult to bear, but they have no other choice.

"I always refer to a trial as a slow-motion replay of the crime that they have to sit there quietly and watch," Pompelio said. "To have to go through the first trial as they did is as much as anyone can take, and to have to go through this second one is punishment beyond anyone's imagination."

"But they have to be there," Pompelio said. "One of the many, many horrors that go through a parent's mind is that they were not there to protect their child.

"So when it comes to trial, you feel that as painful as it is for you, you have to be there for your child, because you weren't there to save them. The difficult thing is it will never go away -- there's no closure for them."